


Nothing Neat or Nice

by ConvenientAlias



Category: Jessica Jones (TV)
Genre: Cheating, F/F, One Night Stands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-02
Updated: 2018-05-02
Packaged: 2019-05-01 03:00:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14511072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConvenientAlias/pseuds/ConvenientAlias
Summary: Rule of business: People come to power, not power to people. Jeri is the employer here, and she shouldn’t be going out to Jessica’s rinky-dink apartment, but for some reason she wants to. Wants to see the detective in her natural habitat, maybe. It’s curiosity, pure and simple.





	Nothing Neat or Nice

Jessica’s a good investigator. She’s efficient and she doesn’t have a whole ton of moral qualms, yet at the same time, she’s dependable. Also she has super strength. All of these are very desirable qualities—for an investigator, that is to say. These are the reasons that Jeri still keeps on bringing her back for new jobs even though she’s so damn rude.

“Tell me you’ve got something,” she says, the minute she answers the phone, before she’s even said hello, before Jeri’s even said hello.

“Hello, Jessica. It’s Hogarth.”

“Yeah, no shit. You’ve got something for me?”

Probably she has no other customers and is late on rent. She’s a hot mess in person, and it’s understandable that not many clients would want to take a chance on her. Jeri wants to sympathize in a feminist way and say it’s because she’s a woman, but it’s more because she’s brusque and rude and always smells like booze. She wears alcoholism so well it doesn’t matter if she’s drunk or not, the aura stays. Jeri wouldn’t hire her either. If she hadn’t taken a chance with her that one time, now a couple months ago.

She doesn’t regret it though, so sometimes a risk pays off.

“My client’s name is John Chacon. His wife is requesting a divorce, and she wants to take him for all he’s got. I need you to find evidence she’s cheating on him.”

“Is she cheating on him?”

“If you can’t find evidence of that, you’ll have to find something else.”

“And what if there’s nothing else?”

There’s always something. “Jessica. I thought you said you wanted a job.”

“I never said that.”

“Well, do you?”

Pause. “I’ll look into her. What’s her name?”

Jeri gives her the details. She interrupts occasionally with a question or a rude remark, but mostly just makes affirmative noises, hums and snorts. Jessica, with all her antisocial tendencies, seems like she should be a quiet person, but most of the time she can’t shut up. Still, at least she’s straightforward.

“Standard commission price. I want half ahead of time. I’ll come in for it tomorrow.”

And Jeri says, “I’ll drop the money off with you tonight.”

Pause.

She isn’t sure why she said it. It slipped out. She was picturing Jessica sitting at her desk, probably putting her dirty shoes up on a messy pile of paper—she’s never actually seen Jessica’s office or her desk, but she’s sure it’s messy—and somehow it slipped out. Rule of business: People come to power, not power to people. Jeri is the employer here, and she shouldn’t be going out to Jessica’s rinky-dink apartment, but for some reason she wants to. Wants to see the detective in her natural habitat, maybe. It’s curiosity, pure and simple.

“Fine,” Jessica says. “But I’m not cleaning up, so if my office doesn’t suit your high standards you can deal with it.”

“Oh, I don’t expect much.”

Another snort, this one with a note of dismissal. “I’ll see you tonight.”

 

* * *

 

It’s dangerous to carry this much cash around in a neighborhood like this one. Jeri isn’t a super-freak like Jessica. She has nothing to protect herself against a mugger, probably wouldn’t even try. But Jessica likes cash more than checks, so that’s what Jeri brings her.

Her eyebrows raise a little bit as she counts it. They always do. She makes a jibe about the fact that it’s in cash. But it impresses her. She flips through the bills, holding them in one hand while she touches their edges with the other. Despite everything messy about her—a tank top and denim for a business meeting, fly-away hair and at least two-day-old eyeliner—she keeps her nails trimmed neat and clean. Jeri keeps up similar habits, though of course she also brushes her hair once in a while and does her makeup daily. And her makeup is aimed at a natural look, not Jessica’s edgy smoky eye…but regardless, she really does have nice nails. Jeri wonders if she’ll use any of the money in her hands to get a manicure and then brushes the thought away. Knowing Jessica, this will all be going toward overdue bills and alcohol and it will be gone by the end of the week.

Jessica tucks the money into a drawer which she locks with a key. She has a decent level of security, though probably not enough for this neighborhood. She gives Jeri a look. “You going?”

“Aren’t you going to…offer me a drink?” She’s seen what she came to see—the office really is a mess, though at least the sign on the door is nice—but still, leaving now after the drive it took to get here seems a bit abrupt.

“I thought you wanted me to stop drinking.”

It’s something Jeri’s said a few times. She shrugs. “Are you going to?”

Jessica takes a bottle and pours some amber liquid into a glass which she jolts in Jeri’s direction. Her unsteadiness means this isn’t her first shot tonight, but she’s not drunk, and maybe she won’t be if she’s drinking with company. Jeri sips and regrets all her life choices. It’s disgusting.

“Okay, you’ve judged my apartment, you’ve judged my whiskey, I think you can get out now and judge me from a distance,” Jessica says.

Jeri forces another swallow. “You know, we could always talk for a couple minutes, like normal human beings.”

Jessica squints at her. Then she laughs. It’s more giggly than Jeri would have expected from such a raucous woman. “Oh, wait…really?”

“Yes, Jessica?”

“Seriously?” Jessica walks around her desk to where Jeri is sitting on a wooden chair. She puts her hands on Jeri’s shoulders. Jeri is forced to tilt her head back to look up at her.

“You didn’t come here tonight to give me the money,” Jessica says.

“Well, technically I did.”

“You didn’t come here to judge me either. You like that my place is dirty. You like that I’m a mess.” Jessica runs her tongue over her lips. “Because right now, that’s how you’re feeling too…am I right?”

Jeri swallows.

The trick about cheating, sometimes, is that you don’t think about what you’re doing until you’re doing it. So when you’re in your office talking to a detective on the phone, you don’t think about how you want to fuck her. You just make arrangements for a casual rendezvous. If it happens, it happens.

Tonight it happens.

“I am an amazing detective,” Jessica says. She kisses Jeri. She tastes of the disgusting alcohol but Jeri’s already drunk some of it tonight so what difference does more make? In fact, she’s starting to get a little thirsty for more of the same. She kisses back, a bit harder than Jessica, who is gentle as she starts for all her smug air. She bites down a little bit, a challenge, and that’s it, Jessica’s on.

She hauls Jeri out of the chair and throws her against the wall. “You know this is very unprofessional,” she says, in a brisk voice that is honestly more professional than the one she used when they were actually talking business.

“If you object, you can always step away.” But she pulls Jessica closer, and Jessica mashes their mouths together again, the earlier finesse gone and done for. She has Jeri’s shoulders pinned against the wall, pushing down so hard there will most likely be bruises in the morning, pushing down so hard Jeri wouldn’t be able to throw her off if she tried. Jeri’s seen her strength before but she’s never felt it. Until now she didn’t realize she wanted to.

But she wants more.

“Fuck me,” she breathes.

Jessica sucks down on her neck lightly, refusing to answer. Jeri reaches under her tank top, presses down and feels the firm abdomen under an initial layer of fat. Jessica squirms a little, and she presses a knee between Jeri’s legs. Her thigh rubs against somewhere a little higher and Jeri moans. She’s never been a quiet one.

“Fuck me.”

Jessica squeezes her shoulders a little harder. “You want someone to just take you, don’t you? Hard. Raw. Make this easy for you.”

“Shut up,” Jeri says. Fine, Jessica likes playing Sherlock Holmes, but that doesn’t mean Jeri has to play along. If she knows what Jeri wants, why is she giving her the opposite?

“You can get fucked and listen or I can shut up and you can leave and we both know which option you like, so.” Jessica shrugs. She kisses Jeri again, on the lips, hard and hungry and slow, sucking and licking. “Thing is I have a problem.”

“What problem?” God damn it. She just wants Jessica to keep going and save the monologue for later.

“I kind of like you.”

That’s enough to give Jeri pause. Her hands, which have been alternately squeezing and stroking Jessica’s sides, still. “I didn’t come here for romance.”

“Yeah. Obviously. Me neither, romance is stupid, love is for losers…” Maybe this is when she spots Jeri’s jaw clenching, because she hurriedly adds, “Not what I meant. I don’t want this to mean anything.”

Jeri relaxes. She lets her hands go back to work, inching one up Jessica’s spine underneath the tank top. There’s a sports bra underneath that outlines Jessica’s backbones. “Mm. Then what did you mean?”

“Well, you’re a sexy rich lady, here in my office, desperate, at my mercy…” Jessica shrugs again, and Jeri feels the muscles move in her back. “I have a few fantasies. We’ll have to take this kind of slow.”

It sounds terrible. Jeri is still onboard.

“Tell me what you want,” she murmurs.

“Hm.” Jessica tilts her head. “Let’s start with you on your knees. I feel like that would be nice.”

Her skirt is short. Her bare knees are bound to get rug-burn, or at the least a little scraped. She sinks down without protest. “And what after that?”

Jessica puts a hand in her hair, cards through it carefully, firmly. “Give me a moment to enjoy the view. I’m thinking it over.”

Jeri puts her hands on the button of her jeans and looks at her, raising her eyebrows. Jessica laughs. “Okay. I guess that’s a good place to start.”

 

* * *

 

Jeri doesn’t get home that night. She’ll have to tell Wendy she fell asleep at the office again. Wendy will know she’s lying but that’s fine because Wendy has known she’s lying for ages now, even though neither of them will talk about it. Wendy likes the status quo. One more night won’ make a difference.

And what a night it is.

When she wakes up in Jessica’s bed, though, it’s surreal. With Pam, they book hotel rooms in hotels that are at least not infested with cockroaches, or they stay at Pam’s apartment which is neat and a little bookish. Jess’s bedroom isn’t as bad as her office in regards to mess but there’s a draft and the boiler makes noises and, as she wakes, she can hear noises from upstairs. Who starts a screaming match at seven in the morning, she has no idea. Certainly she wouldn’t have the energy. But then, she’s always been a night owl.

Jessica is a late sleeper. Jeri gets first go at the bathroom, where she takes a shower and washes her face and does her makeup and hair and then gets into the same dirty dress as the night before—well, everyone at the office already thinks she’s kind of a slut and they know to keep their mouths shut about it, so it doesn’t really matter. When she gets out Jessica is still asleep. Jeri leaves a note. It feels too intimate to wake her up, but leaving without telling is rude. A note is a fair medium.

The only one who gives her a second look at the office is Pam. Jeri smiles and shrugs. “I really do fall asleep at the office sometimes.”

“You overwork yourself,” Pam says with a small laugh. She is still in the stage of infatuation and finds every flaw in Jeri somehow adorable, loveable. She’s so much softer and nicer than Jeri deserves. She hates that when Pam pecks her on the cheek this morning, she feels no desire, not even a requisite stirring. There are bruises on her shoulders and hips and thighs and torso that she will have to hide for days, and there’s a bruise on her neck she’s covering with foundation. They ache a little when she presses into them.

Jessica calls at four in the afternoon. They only talk business. She’s been researching Mrs. Chacon’s finances and contacts. Tonight she’ll be trailing her. “So, don’t call.”

Don’t call as in don’t interrupt her on the job. But Jeri can’t help but see it as a reference to the night before. Read the implication that Jeri might call tonight because she might still want something unprofessional. Catch a little more hesitance in Jessica’s voice than usual.

She thinks about it. What it might mean. Thinks about it until Jessica brings her photos of Mrs. Chacon meeting up with a drug dealer—dirty enough that they can use them, though not the cheating John was hoping for. Well, you take what you can get.

Seeing Jessica again is like cold water to the face. She feels awakened.

“Thank you for the photos.”

“Yeah, well, you’ll be sending me the rest of the money at the end of the week, so.”

“When payroll comes in.”

“Uh huh.”

“I can bring it by.”

“I’ll pick it up.” Jessica crosses her arms. “I don’t think you should come by my office again.”

“And why is that?”

“Look, I don’t mind being someone’s dirty secret. But being a dirty secret kept from the original dirty secret? That’s a little low.” Jessica shrugs. “No hard feelings. But Pam seems nice and maybe you shouldn’t screw that up.”

“Pam is none of your business.”

“Yeah, and as long as you’re with her, neither is the way you moan when you orgasm. So. Guess I’ll be going. But really, no hard feelings.”

Jeri doesn’t resent her for it either. It is what it is. She’ll still use Jessica for her odd jobs—the woman’s too useful not to. And Jessica might have a point, though she doesn’t like being called out.

That she still can’t help the way she feels about Jessica, hot and needy and not at all soft or nice, is just another dirty secret, and this one, no one has to know about. Not Pam, not Wendy, not Jessica. Jeri can pretend she doesn’t even know herself. After all, that’s how you go about cheating. You don’t make plans, you don’t even make fantasies. You just let your hunger rest. It waits. You wait. And eventually, something happens.

**Author's Note:**

> I have some love for morally dubious Hogarth and it is fierce.


End file.
